Al Shabaab are aiming to end the group stage unbeaten when they take on Emirati side Al Jazeera at the Prince Faisal bin Fahd Stadium in Riyadh today, Tuesday, at the end of the second group stage of the Asian Champions League.
The two teams have met in the AFC Champions League five times, during which Al Shabab won three matches, while Al Jazeera won one match and settled the score in another match. Al Shabab won the qualification and topped the group from the last round when they beat Mumbai 6-0 to raise their tally to 13 points, while Al Jazeera lost the opportunity to compete officially after losing to the Iraqi Air Force. and his score froze at 4 points.
Romanian coach Somodica is expected to give some of the names that were not in the previous matches a chance to basically and prepare them for the league competition. As for Al Jazeera, who lost his chances in the tournament, he was not in the best shape in past matches, although he has big international and foreign names, and he hopes to perform at his level and inflict a first defeat on his opponents.
In the fourth group, Al-Taawun are looking for three points in the hope of reaching the next round when they face the Uzbek Pakhtakor at the King Abdullah Sports City stadium in Burayda, at the end of the fourth group competition.
Al-Duhail Qatar took first place and leads the group with 12 points, while Al-Taawun remained second with 7 points and Pakhtakor is in last place with 3 points. Al Taawun squandered an opportunity to take the lead again by giving up a victory that was within reach as he edged out Al Duhail 3-1 before the latter reversed the result in the last five minutes to win 4-3.
“Actually, I’m disappointed with how we lost the match and with the goals scored against our team,” said Dutch coach John van den Brooy. — I think that small mistakes missed the opportunity to keep progress and win. “
He added: “We played 90 minutes at the highest level and created a lot of chances, we scored three goals in the first half and we had the opportunity to add more goals in the second half, but we did not succeed and therefore we lost the victory from our hands.” .
In Al Taawun, a group of players stand out, led by Cameroon’s top scorer Leander Tawamba, Spaniard Alvaro Medran, Dutchman Ashraf Al Mahdawi, Ryan Al Musa, Hassan Al Omari, Samihan Al Nabit and Saad Al Obeid.
As for Pakhtakor, who played at a modest level during the tournament and achieved only one victory over Al-Taawun against losing in five matches, he hopes to achieve a second victory in the tournament, which he officially left.
The Uzbek team has some good players such as Serbian forward Dragan Cheran, Khogyakbar Aligunov, Ikram Alipaev and Sardor Rashidov.